The Reason Why I Hate You
by Explicitly Awesome
Summary: Tony Stark and Steve Rogers have their own reasons to hate each other, but do they really stem from the objects of their fury? Not slash, but friendship, with some Pepperony in the last chapter. Rated T for a couple words.
1. The Reasons Why I Do

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Like, really, nothing.**

**Takes place during The Avengers movie, the scene with everyone fighting in the lab. **

* * *

**Tony Stark**

**"Iron Man"**

Rage-fueled brown eyes met cold blue ones. Harsh words spilled like blood, no care as to what they hit, as to how hard they hit. The icy eyes narrowed with a look too familiar for the billionaire, genius, playboy, philanthropist to ignore.

Suddenly, Tony wasn't _the _Tony Stark. He wasn't in the helicarrier toe-to-toe with Captain America himself, Steve Rogers. He didn't hear those words, "Take it away, what are you?"

He was Anthony Edward Stark, only son of _the _Howard Stark. He was in his room, walls plastered with Captain America posters. He heard his father's stories. Howard's eyes glowed with pride and admiration, not at his six year old son, but at the poster beside his bed. Lost in a wild tale about the Captain, Howard smiled at frozen photograph of the soldier.

The young Anthony looked up at his father, his small voice dragging him out of the past, "I'm gonna be a hero just like him!"

Howard looked down at him, the prideful gleam had vanished as soon as the little Stark had spoken, "No, Anthony, there was only one hero, and he's long gone."

"Can you tell me another story about him, then?" There wasn't a trace of hope in the six year olds voice, he knew his father's exchangeable responses, "I've got to get back to work" "I've got far too much to do tonight." "I can't, Anthony."

As Howard walked out the door, the child's eyes brimmed with unshed tears. No matter how hard he tried, he knew he would never earn the same small smile and little sparkle of admiration that the long dead Captain Steve Rogers had gotten.

* * *

The wrench skid across the concrete floor with a violent scraping sound, but the fourteen year old didn't care. Grease stained the knees and thighs of his jeans as Anthony Stark, slammed his forehead against the car door. He had long since ripped his posters into shreds, stomped his red, white and blue costume into the mud. He hated Captain America, and that thought burned itself into his mind. The wrench had stopped with clang once it hit the door where Howard Stark had just walked out.

Anthony was a year away from MIT, and he couldn't fix the car. "I bet _Captain Steve fucking Rogers _could fix the fucking car," he mumbled to himself. He had woken up that morning and strolled into the garage, where his father had directed him to fix it.

"If you're going to be an engineer, you've got to be able to find what's not working."

That was at seven that morning. It was just past five in the evening. Howard, expecting to find the pristine vehicle, instead found his son struggling under the car.

Anthony had caught his eyes as he watched, the chill orbs where practically overflowing with disappointment. Not that it was new, no, the memories reminded him of that.

"_How can you expect to get into MIT early without being the top of your class?"_

_ "Not good enough."_

_ "You've gotta have iron in your backbone."_

_ "Anthony, can you do _anything _right?"_

The wrench flew out as the last one flared.

"_He was perfect."_

* * *

**Captain Steve Rogers**

**"Captain America"**

He didn't regret them when he said them. No, the words were his, there was no returning them. No denying them. What wasn't his was that look, the shocked, furious and, very deep down, hurt look in achingly familiar eyes. Thats what made him even more enraged.

It wasn't the name that Captain Steve Rogers recognized first about Tony Stark, it was his eyes, his fathers eyes. Steve had liked Howard, he seemed like an honest, hardworking man. He had gotten the impression that, if things had been different, they could've been friends.

After all, it was with all of Howard's help that he was who he was today. But this, _this, _was his son? This arrogant, self-obsessed, man-child? When he first met Tony, could didn't believe this was _the _Howard Starks son.

Then again. What did he know? He was at least ninety at this point, time had outrun him. Could that tall standing genius really have been just like his son?

He was at least ninety.

Ninety.

The fire of rage exploded in his heart, he was ninety. Howard was dead, Peggy was dead, _Bucky was dead_.

And there standing, the Man of Iron himself, glaring at the supersoldier with all the hate anyone could muster.

What did Stark have to hate? From what the news had told him, He had playboy bunnies, he had Pepper Potts, he had his money and his 'friends' and his suit of armor. He had people. Living, breathing, tangible people.

Did he wake up one day to find himself in an alien time? Did he have to hide away from the world because it was too much to handle?

_Did he know what it was like to lose something?_

* * *

_A/N_ **I got the idea from the line in Iron Man 2: "He never told me he loved me, he never even told me he liked me..." and mix it with the Avengers line, "THIS is the guy my dad never shut up about?" gives me, this.**


	2. The Reasons Why I Don't

**A/N: People with story alerts scare me, like, what if I don't live up to your standards as far as chapters go? What if I fail you and break all your hopes and dreams with my kind of out of character Captain America? These are the things that make me lose sleep. BTW: This is totally all friendship Tony and Cap. I'm not knocking slash, but I love Pepperony far too much to ship Stark Spangled...**

* * *

The clean up had started, destroyed cars towed away, Chitauri corpses incinerated. The streets of New York City were, for once, practically empty. Survivors spent their nights in the arms of loved ones, or in churches, falling prey to the wild-eyed protesters, claiming the invasion was an act of God.

The few street lights that lie unbroken couldn't glow the city enough to blot out the innumerable stars. For that, Tony Stark was glad.

He watched the sky above him, moonlight catching the shards of the shattered whiskey bottle lying in the puddle of its contents.

He normally would have mourned the loss of such a fine drink, but today, he had bigger things to think about. He pondered the skies above him as he leaned against the ledge of the roof of Stark Towers.

"I didn't think Pepper would have let you out of her sight."

He whipped around at the voice, to find himself staring at Captain Steve Rogers, better known to the people of New York as Captain America

"You need something, Cap?"

Steve shrugged, "Not really, I just needed to talk to you."

Tony arched an eyebrow, "Needing something is needing something, Apple Pie."

Brushing off the new nickname, Steve set down a beer onto the ledge next to the Man of Iron and opened one for himself, "I can't get drunk, but, going through the motions still feels right." Tony opened his own, "I can, and trust me, this feels more than right, so what did you want?"

Steve brought the bottle to his lips, an almost obvious stall to the question and, averting his eyes, he replied, "I'm sorry for what I said on the helicarrier, I was beyond wrong in assuming you would never give the ultimate sacrifice."

Tony took a long, deep, swig of his own beer, preparing an apology for himself, "You were, actually, you were really wrong, but so was I, we were supposed to be working together, but I was antagonizing you,I didn't mean what I said either. I just needed a reason to hate you."

"Why?"

Tony drank again, long gulps at a time, until the bottle was empty. He needed to say this, once and for all.

"Because he loved you, because he never shut up about you, because he was proud of you."

It was Steve's turn to raise an eyebrow, "What are you talking about, Tony?"

The young Stark glared at the street below them, "My father, Howard Stark."

Steve stared at the same spot Tony did, "Oh," he acknowledged, "I'm sure he was proud of you, too, you -"

"Were just a fuck up in his eyes," Tony interrupted, "the man never _once _said he was proud of me, he never said he loved me, the only time he treated me like a son was when he was telling me stories about you."

He punctuated the sentence by tossing the bottle onto the concrete rooftop, leaving a resounding crash. Steve assumed a similar fate had befallen the whiskey bottle, Tony pushed himself away from the ledge, and growled, "You were the son he wanted, not me."

The Super Soldier watched the billionaires retreating back, "So what if you think Howard didn't love you?" He called, "You've got plenty of people who do now."

That stopped Tony, he turned and watched Steve, who took the rare silence as a chance to say the rest of his thoughts, "I hated you because I thought you didn't know what it was like to lose, but I was wrong, Tony, you've lost some of the most important things, I read your file, I know I don't know everything about you, but I know enough to know that you never needed Howards approval. You've got a city full of people who owe you their lives, you've got Miss Potts who will love you no matter what, and I bet if you asked her, she's more proud of you than you think."

The young Stark opened his mouth to speak, only to be cut off by tight arms wrapping around his neck from behind, "Tony! There you are, I've been looking for you for nearly half an hour, first you almost kill yourself with a nuke and then you disappear and tell JARVIS not to tell anyone where you went."

"Pep...can't...breathe..." He choked out, trying to detach his secretary-turned-girlfriend. She let go, nodding a greeting to the laughing Captain and burying her head into Tonys neck, "If you ever do that again, I will make JARVIS replace all your ACDC and Black Sabbath with Beethoven."

Steve silently retreated as Tony mimed hurt and embraced her again.

Tony looked up at Steve as he wrapped his arms around Pepper, he smiled and mouthed 'Thank you', before once again bartering for the return of his music.

* * *

**Later that Night**

_He was stretched across his bed, eyes closed, muscles aching from battle. Even the change from his old clothes to sweatpants had hurt. Although It wasn't that he minded anymore, it didn't matter that the limb groaned in protest as he used his arm to pull Pepper Potts closer to him. She traced the outline of his Arc Reactor and laid her head on his chest. _

"_Tony." She started, "I should really change out of these clothes."_

_She had only intended to force him into bed and make him sleep, but he dragged her down with him, so there she was still in what she was wearing the day before, curled against her injured boyfriend._

"_I'll let you go if you answer one question, Miss Potts."_

"_Anything, Mr. Stark."_

_He opened a single brown eye to focus onto hers, "Are you proud of me?"_

_She sat up, pulling herself above him, causing him to open his other eye, "Am I proud that you almost killed yourself today? I want to slap you for it, but I'm proud that you could be so giving, that you save the world so many times." She leaned closer, looking him directly in the eyes, "I'm also, so very, very proud of the idea that, if it exists, _my _Tony Stark can build it in a cave with a box of scraps."_

_She kissed him lightly before finishing with his line, "You complete me." She got up and walked to the door, itching to get out of the clothes she had been wearing for so long, but the tired voice of the inventor stopped her, "I love you, Virginia Potts.'"_

"_I love you to, Anthony Stark."_

* * *

**A/N: Ok, NOW I'm done, I promise, anything more would really be milking it. **


End file.
